Prolific Pole wins three straight: Iga SWIATEK retains Qatar Open title again with straight sets win over rival Elena RYBAKINA

Iga Swiatek has won a third straight Qatar Open title with the World Number One downing her rival Elena Rybakina 7-6, 6-2 in the final in Doha on Saturday evening for her first title of the season.

Swiatek lost out in the third round of the Australian Open to Linda Noskova and so came into the Qatar Open perhaps with question marks about her game. But as she has been in the previous two years, the conditions in Doha prove to be a match made in heaven.

Amid early pressure from Rybakina, Swiatek weathered the Kazakh storm and continued her record all week of not losing a set with wins over Sorana Cirstea, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Victoria Azarenka barely losing a game before taking down Rybakina. She benefited in the semi-finals too from Karolina Pliskova withdrawing due to injury. Rybakina on the other hand has played basically for the past two weeks straight having won Abu Dhabi. She couldn't add a third title of the year this time.

But perhaps was in the best position to do so in the early going in a set that proved to be vital. Rybakina was 4-1 up with two breaks then had a lengthy timeout after drawing blood from her leg on her serve. Swiatek had time as a result to consult her coaching team and it proved that the gruesome injury proved to be the catalyst for the Polish revival. She recovered it at 4-4.

Rybakina served for it at 6-5, but failed to claim the set and both had set points in the tie-break before Swiatek narrowly edged it. A 1 hour 27 minute set paled in comparison to the second as Rybakina lost her serve early on after spurning break points and Swiatek went 3-1 up.

Both held from there, before Swiatek did the right things at the right moments and broke within a whisker of the title at 5-2 before producing an emphatic service hold and on her second match point, it was sublime Swiatek sealing the crown.